(d) “In Afghanistan, Taliban surpasses al-Qaeda“, Washington Post, 11 November 2009 — “Although the war in Afghanistan began as a response to al-Qaeda terrorism, there are perhaps fewer than 100 members of the group left in the country, according to a senior U.S. military intelligence official in Kabul who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official estimated that there are 300 al-Qaeda members in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where the group is based …”

Two senior military officers from the shadowy world of Special Operations are playing a large and previously unreported role in shaping the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy, a move that underscores that the internal debate has moved past a rigid choice between expansive missions to provide security for Afghan civilians and narrowly tailored missions to find and kill terrorists.

Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, the deputy leader of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., are attending and informing the strategy meetings that the White House began in September to refine its approach in Afghanistan.

… Debate about a “purely counterterrorism strategy” advocated by Vice President Joseph Biden was “bounced around at one point, but that has been cast aside,” said a National Security Council staffer who attends the meetings and who asked for anonymity because the debate is still ongoing, “mostly because JSOC has said ‘We’re going to do this anyway.’ And it’s not like they’re going to be in a supporting role.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where and which websites they are visiting.

Despite widespread opposition over Britain’s growing surveillance society, 653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

Wikipedia has the short, sad story of how Armistice Day – a holiday “dedicated to the cause of world peace” – became, as of 1954, a day honoring the military as such. I regret the change. The US already had Memorial Day for military members killed in action, and Armed Forces Day began in 1950. A third military-focused holiday would already be overkill even if it wasn’t a perversion of the original meaning of November 11 remembrances. As John Quiggin reminds us today, November 11 marks the blessed if temporary end to one of the great calamities – crimes – visited on people by their leaders, and by people on each other. It is meant to be a day dedicated to hating the waste and sin of war.

While the impulse behind Veteran’s Day seems “grass roots” enough, it depended on the assent of the powerful to enact it.You can see why the government would have embraced a chance to change that holiday’s focus. As for me, I’ll exercise my personal veto. Happy Armistice Day.

(V) Afterword

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…officials said Mr. Obama pressed for clarifications on a series of questions. Where are the off-ramps for the military? What is the exit strategy? When will Americans and their allies hand responsibility to the Afghanistan government? Can the Afghan government improve its credibility?

While much has been made of the four military options on the table – all of which revolve around how many troops to send and for how long – the president also made clear that he is not yet fully satisfied with these choices and will not approve an open-ended commitment. He has also asked, officials said, that some of the options be redrawn.”

… A few hours before the meeting of his war council began Wednesday, Mr. Obama walked through the rain-soaked grass at Arlington National Cemetery. He stopped by Section 60, where 577 troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. He moved slowly among the granite headstones etched with names of today’s wars, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Worse, I fear he’s just stalling. Delaying the decision to escalate until after he gets the Peace Prize in Oslo on 10 December. Bad form to take it with fresh blood on his hands, however worthy the war.

Obama no doubt thinks he can finesse his way out of the war using a sophisticated approach that balances the myriad of competing forces. And he has a snowballs chance in hell of doing it.

He’s surrounded himself with people who have made a career making sure people like him take the fall for their disasters. There IS going to be a big time loser all this and the longer Obama aims for a win-win solution that satisfies everyone the surer it will be that it will be him.

A good start would to call the militaries bluff on the COIN nonsense and tell them that in line with their great new doctrine troops will be deploying with their families to Afghanistan indefinitely. Maybe with something on the line they might win for a change.

How to Spend More and More Money to Reduce to your Military Effectiveness

There is an interesting fundamental conflict of interest between defense contractors and defense.

Basically contractor profits go up the higher the cost of the weapon. Not only is this in straight profit but in addition the customer (government) is essentially funding the contractors R&D investment costs – that is a very substantial subsidy. So the incentive is for the contractor to make the very best equipment at the highest price even at ever decreasing rates of quality improvement. So militaries are urged to purchase ever fewer of higher and higher quality units.

But in warfare at the simplest level the overall effectiveness of opposing forces varies according to the square of the ratio of opposing unit quality – the Lanchester square law. This means that if Blue has two units and side Red has four even if each of Blue units are twice as effective as Blues the fight is not fair – it favors Red 2 to 1. The quality of Blues units has to actually be 4 times greater for an even fight.

Now there are lots of issues with this simple analysis – quality does not have a linear cost for instance – arming everyone with spears isn’t cost effective either. And there are undoubtedly discontinuities and thresholds and fixed costs that all distort the curves.

But there is still a sweet spot in equipment complexity where the cost effectiveness – even though that is not the common perception and it certainly not in the interests of the contractors to point it out. When you look at US military equipment procurement over the last 20 years it’s fairly obvious that things have been pushed far away from the optimum.